Old Scars
by Heather68
Summary: At some point during the day or, on occasion, the middle of the night, Potter would wander in.


**Co-written with Stormypup**

**A/N:** Written for this weeks AWDT challenge - "Scar".

Beta'd by **Arenas**

* * *

**Old Scars  
**

Fingers caressed the cool glass of the fourth floor window, drawing odd, deformed shapes with each pass. A new puff of breath, and the window fogged more, giving him more room to draw. Spirals, circles, boxes, faces on miniature stick figures fighting along the bottom near the ledge. His forehead rested against the upper panes, not smudging any of the drawings while they lasted.

Snape awoke to find Potter in his room. Again. "Oh look, it's the boy who won't go away," he croaked, his voice rasping and raw. Potter kept wandering into his room, and he had yet to figure out why.

"Oh look it's the man who refuses to grow up."

"Perhaps you could draw on your own window. You do have a room of your own you know."

Harry shrugged, looking back out the window. "I don't like it there."

"Did you ever stop to think that I don't like you here?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Obviously," Snape snorted. "If I had my wand, I would hex you. Consider yourself lucky."

"As if they'd let _you_ hold a wand."

Snape scowled. "You're one to talk, you miserable brat."

Harry winced and drew his feet up onto the sill. He wrapped his arms around his legs, pulling them against his chest, and then rested his chin on his knees. "I hate this place. I just want to leave."

"We have something in common, I just want you to leave as well." Snape stared at the ceiling. It was a strange routine they had fallen in to. At some point during the day or, on occasion, the middle of the night, Potter would wander in. Sometimes he ignored him, pretending to sleep, but, more often then not, they traded insults until Potter wandered back out again.

"Your room is always quiet."

"There are benefits to being a pariah."

"Do you really mind it? Me being in here, I mean."

"Of course I mind," Snape answered, but there was no real malice behind the words.

"Good," his gaze returned out the window to the street below.

"Potter, why aren't you basking in the adulation of your friends and adoring public? Must you continue to bother me at all hours?"

"Basking--you are joking right?"

"Isn't that what you do?" Snape asked innocently. The boy was far too morose today. Snape preferred him angry to this.

"No, it isn't."

"My mistake. It's hard to tell when your face is plastered on the front page of the Daily Prophet on a regular basis."

Harry leaned backwards until his head hit the wooden window frame. He closed his eyes, exhaling. "Hasn't been recently though, has it?"

"Actually, I haven't a clue. I stopped reading it days ago."

"Good thing you haven't."

"They just keep regurgitating the same information, and much of which is wrong. Not a single one of those reporters was there. If they were, they wouldn't be so damned glib."

"They printed _the_ story again."

Snape's lip curled in disgust. "Why do you keep reading it?"

"To stay informed. One of us should know what the world thinks of what we did."

"The world can sod off. I didn't do it for them."

"No, you did it for yourself."

"Your ignorance is showing again, Potter."

"Well you certainly didn't do it for _them_."

"Feel free to leave at any time, Potter." Snape rolled on to his side, putting his back to Harry.

"I don't think I will. I like it here, remember? It's quiet."

Snape was feeling petulant. "It's about to get quieter."

"Fine by me."

The quiet lasted all of two minutes before Snape rolled over once again. "Damn it, Potter, I can't sleep with you looming! Go bother someone else!" _Or at least stop acting like a mindless drone._

"Bother who? There is no one else worth bothering in this place, unless you count Lockhart, and I sure don't."

"Ah, so I am a last resort. You must be desperate for company. Perhaps if I pontificate on your many virtues, you'll get bored and leave?"

Harry's smile was small, but it was there. "You think I have virtues to pontificate about?"

"Haven't you heard? You're a hero. People will name their children after you for ages. The boy who lived and saved the world," Snape said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Give them all a few years, and I'm sure they'll dedicate a bloody religion to you."

"And Colin Creevey would be their pope." Harry shook his head. "Those aren't virtues."

"Oh right, virtues. Honest, brave, loyal, champion of all things bright and good," Snape droned.

"Do you honestly believe that?"

"I believe one of them," he answered, smirking.

Harry arched a brow, but remained silent, figuring he wouldn't try his luck. "So when are they letting you leave?"

"That depends on who you are referring to. The Hospital or the Ministry?"

"Either. Both."

"The wound in my leg is not healing like it should. Until it does so, they are keeping me here and the ministry can rot."

"They don't know what's wrong with it?"

"No, and since Avery's wand was destroyed with him, they don't know what curse caused it. I may lose it," he said, as if it were of little consequence.

Harry's lips formed an 'o' and he squeezed his eyes shut. "Ew."

"Indeed. I'd think the idea would please you."

"I may not like you, Snape, but losing your leg...it's not like we're starfish and can just grow them back."

"Where in the world did you pick up that bit of information?" Snape was amused, but refused to show it.

"I did go to a Muggle formative school before going to Hogwarts," Harry pointed out.

"It's heartening to know that Muggles are adequately teaching today's youth," he snorted. "You know about the regenerative powers of starfish, yet you can't remember how to make a simple Pepper Up potion."

"I liked animals and plants. Everything else science-y I didn't understand. That just carried over into potions class."

Snape sighed. "You weren't completely inept. That honor lies with Longbottom."

Harry's smile turned reminiscing. "He had his strong points, just like any of us."

"You miss him." It was more of a statement than a question.

"He and I became very close before...well...anyways, we were just close is all."

"I can't say that I'll miss any of my former associates."

"None of them?"

_Draco. Albus. Minerva._ "None. Sorrow is wasted on the dead."

"I'm not so sure about that. What better to waste it on?"

Snape looked at Harry directly for the first time. "For the living."

Harry frowned, his brow knitting together in thought. "What makes you think that?"

"The dead are free of this world. I won't pretend to know what lies beyond, but it must be better than this."

"You can't be sure of that though."

"I'm sure that this life is full of misery and pain."

"It might seem that way now, but surely you can see that there's more than that."

"If there is, I've yet to see it."

"And you won't if you don't let yourself either."

"Waxing philosophical, Potter?"

Harry shrugged, fighting the blush from his face. "Just trying to stay optimistic."

Snape studied him, frowning. "Why do you keep returning to my room?"

"You'd think I was lying if I told you."

"Try me."

"I feel safe."

Snape nodded, accepting the answer. He looked at Harry for a long moment, then rolled over once again. "If you can't draw anything more than a stick figure, leave my windows alone," he growled.

Harry tried to pout and failed miserably. "You don't like them?"

"It leaves streaks and smudges on the window."

"Fine, I'll stop."

"Next time bring a chess set; I'm tired of talking to you."

"You'd beat me within the first ten moves."

"At least it might shut you up, and it would only take five."

"What if I was a sore loser? I might never shut up then."

"Would you shut up now so I could sleep?"

Harry grinned, slipping off the windowsill. "I'll go now."

"Finally."

"I'll see you tomorrow, sir."

"Are you still here?"

Harry laughed and headed towards the exit. He paused in the doorway and turned around flashing his ex-professor a blinding smile. "Goodnight," he whispered, before leaving. He wandered down the sterile hall back to his room, thinking that this might be one wound that would heal without leaving a scar.


End file.
